Sentra Snazzies Up

Nissan has a goal in the compact-car segment much like everyone else’s: grow sales and share.

That’s not an easy thing to do when your competitors are the Honda Civic and Toyota Corolla.

The Japanese twosome has switched off as the No.1 and No.2 sellers in WardsAuto’s Upper Small group for more than a decade.

While the Sentra’s last full redesign in 2012 resulted in a 91.2% sales increase through last year, the Nissan compact still trails the Civic and Corolla by a wide margin, 203,509 sales in 2015 compared with 335,384 and 363,332, respectively.

For the refreshed ’16 Sentra, on sale now at U.S. Nissan dealers, the automaker focused on four key areas it thought needed tweaking to keep sales rising: excitement, intelligence, confidence and refinement.

The first and last goals are reflected in updated exterior styling, including the car’s Nissan-signature V-motion grille and boomerang headlamps, but are even more prevalent with the Sentra’s refreshed interior.

A new shift knob, 370Z-inspired steering wheel, seat fabrics and glossy door trim with a small diagonal check pattern in lieu of previously metallic trim add some zing to the cabin of one of our test vehicles, and bring the Sentra more on par with the new Civic, the unofficial C-car interior leader.

Leather seats and headrests in one Sentra tested have cobalt-blue stitching, adding even more zip.

Another Sentra, a $21,000 SV grade with a $750 style package, features black-on-black cloth seats with white stitching along the seat edges and down the center of the back cushion for added style.

Upper door trim is hard plastic, although its low gloss makes it a dead ringer for soft-touch. The glossy trim and a padded fabric area sit above a generously padded and wide armrest, an advantage for the Sentra over the all-new Hyundai Elantra with its hard-plastic door trim and narrow armrests.

A glaring omission in the outgoing Sentra was the lack of a power driver’s seat, so Nissan now offers the feature standard on the SL grade and optional on the SR model.

We wish the front passenger seat was as fully featured. It lacks even a manual height adjustment, important for the long-torso-ed passenger who can’t position the shoulder-belt height high enough for comfort.

Tall visors with extenders, included in the SV’s style package, are a nice feature not available in much more expensive vehicles.

Lots of Tech, Little Money

The added intelligence in the form of advanced safety technology is impressive. Forward-emergency braking, adaptive cruise control (able to bring the car to a full stop) and blindspot warning with rear cross-traffic alert are rare in this class, and usually paired with top trim levels. In the Sentra, BSW with RCTA as well as navigation with SiriusXM traffic can be had in a $1,020 driver’s assist package on the second grade of the ’16 sedan, the SV, for less than $20,000.

A Sentra SR or SL with forward-emergency braking and adaptive cruise (included in a $1,230 technology package requiring the purchase of a $1,130 or $2,590 premium package) is just over $25,000, giving Nissan a couple-thousand-dollar advantage over similarly equipped Civics and Elantras.

On infotainment, the Sentra is a mixed bag.

Using voice to tune in satellite radio channels is quick and easy. Address input is quick, but we wish the virtual keys and entire touchscreen were bigger.

The relatively small touchscreen, as well as a parking brake lever taking up valuable center-console real estate, give away the age of the Sentra.

Also dating the car is the Sentra’s sole engine, a 1.8L, port-injected, naturally aspirated 4-cyl. The relatively low-output mill mated to a CVT still drones under medium-to-hard acceleration in California and Michigan road tests. However, powertrain noise isn’t as loud as we remember thanks to added insulating materials.

The biggest factors in the reduction of audible powertrain noise in the cabin likely is the “high-density mass barrier” used as a dash insulator, as well as stiffened engine mounts, the latter quelling engine noise into the cabin by 10%, Nissan says.

Underneath door trim is a material called Autozorb, while the car also receives an acoustic-glass windshield.

The Sentra’s CVT is tweaked, now using the third generation of Nissan’s D-step shift logic, which simulates automatic gear changes. Nissan says the CVT now better matches engine and vehicle speed, but without the outgoing Sentra to test back-to-back this is hard to discern.

The U.S. C-segment isn’t filled with great engines, just basic workhorses really, so in that respect the 1.8L isn’t too far behind the pack. Its 130 hp and 128 lb.-ft. (174 Nm) of torque is on the lower end of new C-car 4-cyl. output. For comparison, the Civic has a 158-hp 2.0L and a 174-hp turbocharged 1.5L.

A low torque peak, 3,600 rpm, plus an aggressive throttle tip-in help the Sentra’s engine feel more powerful than it is on paper.

Suspension components are changed or updated to inspire more confident handling, Nissan says, including 10% stiffer springs, 30% stiffer rear bushings and 16-in. tires for S and SV grades that have stiffer sidewalls.

Steering now has a more progressive feel with less input needed thanks to a new intermediate shaft with 23% higher torsional stiffness and revised controller mapping.

Active understeer control, lightly braking front wheels in a turn for improved trace-ability, also is new for ’16 on all but the base S grade with a 6-speed manual and the fuel-efficiency-focused FE+S grade.

Most of the roads we travel in our drives are too congested to really open the car up, but in rare instances along emptier stretches the Sentra exhibits a decent fling-ability factor, especially surprising in the non-sport SV grade.

Combined fuel economy is good, with a high of 33 mpg (7.1 L/100 km) in a stop-and-go-heavy stretch in Southern California. That falls between the 35 mpg (6.7 L/100 km) we earned in a new Elantra in January and the 32 mpg (7.4 L/100 km) averaged in a 2.0L Civic sedan in December.

The new Sentra is a good, not great, compact. It doesn’t have the grab-you styling of the Civic, or its more powerful engines, but feature-for-feature the Sentra offers a lot for the money compared with most competitors. It’s worth a look for those in the market for a new compact.

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'16 Nissan Sentra SR Specifications